"Here is the plan." On the easel next to Sheriff Hemlock sat a map of the lands surrounding Sandpoint. Sharply, he rapped three points north, east, and south of the town. "Each team is to begin their search here, here and here. They will mark out a grid until the subject is located. If you run into Shalelu or one of the other friendly rangers before you find her, let them know she was last seen in Rynshinn's shop." Slightly behind him, the woman in question wrung her hands, her attention wavering from the barking lawman to the little girl crying into her skirt.
"Ah, thank you, gentlemen, but that will not be necessary." The affected voice, tinged with a note of contrition, washed over the assembled search parties. They turned to see the missing person standing just behind them, a little distance away. Her pale skin and white frock were streaked with dirt, and her inhumanly violet, finely curled hair was frazzled, but there she was, otherwise intact. Their initial shock quickly turned to confused, and in some cases resentful, mutterings, and Melyanna began to walk among them. "Now now, no need for that," she said, handing each a rough gemstone or two from a pouch at her waist.
"For your trouble," she explained. "It was awfully generous of you to devote your time to a search party, and I'm truly grateful. But you can all go home now." She waved away any questions. "You'll hear all about it eventually. I owe someone else the story first." She reached the front of the group, and ushered Rynshinn and her young charge into the older woman's boutique. "A lady does not cry in public," Melyanna murmured to the girl, but instead of stopping she blew her nose into Rynshinn's skirt. Before Melyanna could say anything else, the woman grabbed her by the ear and made Melyanna face her.
"Were you collecting tailings from the glassworks?" This was a longstanding argument.
"They just let so many perfectly good jewels go to waste in their coloring process, and they all wash up on shore—" she stopped herself. "But I shouldn't have gone alone. It was stupid." She took a breath, suppressing a shudder. "I bumped into a band of 'Licktoad' goblins on the way back. So uncouth. They caught me and said they'd take me back to their camp … for supper."
The girl looked up at Melyanna for the first time, her eyes wide. "But you got away, right Nésa*?"
"That's right, Vanimë. Make sure Amya and Atya** know I'm okay too, when they come to collect you." Melyanna knew how important her parents' excursions into the wilderness were for their relationship, and didn't begrudge having to take care of her sister while they were gone. And her reason told her they couldn't have possibly heard she'd been missing. Still, it hurt that they weren't here. It wasn't too selfish of Melyanna to want them to fuss over her when they got back, was it?
"I will." The girl was visibly cheered by the responsibility. "How'd you do it?"
"Come nightfall, we still hadn't reached their camp, so they stopped to rest and set a guard on me. To my surprise, he pulled out a battered old rag of a book and started to read by torchlight!"
"Goblins don't read!"
"Quite, Rynshinn. He made me promise not to tell any of his comrades." A mischievous little grin played across Melyanna's face for a moment. "And I didn't. I just kept him talking until the others began to wake up. He so wanted to share what he knew. It was precious, almost.
"But the others saw him, and they set to him, and I was able to slip away in the ruckus."
Vanimë let Rynshinn go and launched herself at her sister. Melyanna almost fell back off her chair at the force of her hug. "Weren't you scared?"
Melyanna nodded into her shoulder. "A lady never cries in public," she repeated. But her face was wet.
* Elven for "sister."
** Elven for "mother" and "father" respectively.
